


tell me we'll make it through

by moodyreindeer



Series: the best and worst parts of me [2]
Category: High School Musical: The Musical: The Series (TV)
Genre: Consensual Underage Sex, Crying During Sex, Family Issues, M/M, Mild Sexual Content, Post-Canon, Teen Angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-19
Updated: 2020-09-19
Packaged: 2021-03-06 16:54:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,447
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26002237
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moodyreindeer/pseuds/moodyreindeer
Summary: Like all things that bother him, Ricky tries not to think about it.
Relationships: Ricky Bowen/E.J. Caswell
Series: the best and worst parts of me [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1887274
Comments: 7
Kudos: 57





	tell me we'll make it through

**Author's Note:**

> title from easy by troye sivan
> 
> posted without beta, because i am nothing if not consistent.

Ricky has a complicated relationship with love.

He loves his dad. He loves his friends. He loved Nini, just not the way she wanted. He loves his mom, he thinks. He knows he should.

It’s not like he hates her, because Ricky has a complicated relationship with hate, too. He hates sauerkraut. He hates the president.

He used to hate EJ Caswell.

He doesn’t know when he stopped. But he must’ve to spend weekends lying in bed with his former enemy, moaning his name and fisting the sheets. Ricky couldn’t sleep with someone he hates. He knows it’s supposed to be with someone you love, but nothing between Ricky and EJ has ever been about love.

Lust, yes. But never love.

There’s no time for love, anyway. In two months EJ will be in Los Angeles, and Ricky will still be in Salt Lake City, and life will go on as if nothering ever happened.

Like all things that bother him, Ricky tries not to think about it.

Two weeks after they’ve started sleeping together, Ricky gets a call from his mom.

He was expecting it - Fourth of July is approaching, and although Ricky usually spent the Fourth with his friends anyway, holidays always spike his mother’s guilt. 

He answers when she calls; he likes to think he’s a good son (even if he really didn’t want to). She’s rambling, nervous. Phone calls with his mother are typically one-sided, but he can tell this time she’s working harder to fill any potential silence, tiptoeing around a sensitive subject.

When it comes to Ricky and his mother, they could make a grocery list of _sensitive subjects_. It could be a number of things - his grades, college, his dad, his hypothetical visit to Chicago. Ricky doesn’t feel like playing twenty questions to figure it out.

“Mom, I really have to go…” He doesn’t - there’s nowhere for him to go. His dad is with Miss Jenn painting sets for the middle school’s summer play; Big Red is carrying Ashlyn’s shopping bags around the mall; Seb and Carlos went to Los Angeles with Carlos’s cousins for the month.

No way is he hanging out with Nini or Kourtney. While his ex-girlfriend made it clear she still wants them to be friends, her face just reminds him that he isn’t worth sticking around for. And Kourtney, although she has her moments, really only tolerates him in group sessions.

His mother makes an abrupt choking sound, then spits it out all at once: “I want you to move to Chicago.”

The world freezes.

She’s still talking because of course she is. She drops a bomb to obliterate his entire world then bulldozes through to clear out the wreckage. He knows that he should be listening, that he might be agreeing to something he has no plans to follow through on, but his survival instinct has kicked in. It’s the same instinct that took over when his parents fought at the dinner table or in a restaurant or at a parent-teacher conference and tried to rope him into it. His brain shuts down and his senses work on autopilot. He _hmms_ and _yeahs_ at the right places, but his mind is miles away, fleeing to the dark and lonely place where everything is bleak and it’s hard to breathe and his chest hurts.

An anxiety disorder, a guidance counselor once called it. _You should really see a therapist about that, son._

He never got around to it.

Satisfied, at least for the moment, his mother finally lets him go. Ricky lets his phone sit against his face, hot and slick with sweat. It drops to his bed when his fingers forget how to hold it.

He tries to picture Chicago. He’s been there a couple times - first on family vacations, then an awkward visit to see his mother’s new apartment, shared with Todd. All he can see is grey clouds and tall buildings, so high above him they look ready to topple over and crush him.

He tries to picture himself there. Skating down the packed sidewalks, maneuvering around people in a rush to get somewhere. The screams of traffic and buses and taxis and beggars and scammers.

All of it sits on his chest until his ribs crack under the phantom weight, deflating his lungs.

There’s so much he has to do in wake of this bombshell - he has to text Big Red. He has to tell his dad. He has to tell his mom no.

He has to tell EJ. 

Ricky lays there, acutely aware of what needs to be done but too anxious to do any of it. He lays there until dusk, until his dad comes home and rummages around the fridge for leftovers. Until his dad gracelessly climbs the stairs and retreats to his room for the night.

_I need to do something,_ Ricky thinks. _I need to get away._

_I need EJ._

* * *

EJ is a lot of things during sex, but Ricky loves it the most when he’s mean.

He’s always mean, in that arrogant, entitled way he has of existing, but he becomes a different beast entirely when it’s just the two of them in a bed in an empty house. 

For all his shit-talking, Ricky knows EJ’s body count is lower than he leads everyone to believe. EJ confessed it once, breathing heavy in his ear as his blunt nails dug into his hips:

_“There’s not a lot of girls who are made to take it like you.”_

Ricky didn’t think to be offended until afterwards.

But he can also be playful, or sweet, or teasing. He’s always generous, matching touch for touch, orgasm for orgasm. It shocked Ricky, the first few times after that morning in EJ’s bedroom. He used to think of EJ and think selfish, a taker who would rather be milked dry than return the favor. Ricky didn’t think he would enjoy that, sharing a bed with someone so demanding and forceful, but on the nights EJ lets that side of himself out, it leads to the hardest, quickest orgasms of Ricky’s life.

That’s the EJ Ricky is looking for tonight, when he shoves the older boy down on his ridiculously huge bed and covers EJ’s body with his own. The mansion is empty until the next weekend, and the nearest neighbor is miles of manicured lawn away. It’s a situation perfect for a night of sexual deviancy.

Ricky wants bruises. He wants scratches. He wants pleasure so good it hurts. He wants nothing but sensation tethering him to his body.

He wants to _forget_.

But EJ won’t give. When Ricky yanks their clothes off with an unmatched viciousness, EJ delicately pins his wrists above his head and plasters open-mouthed kisses against his neck, his chest. He’s whispering into Ricky’s skin, dirty words dipped in sweet honey, as his nose rubs the spot behind Ricky’s left ear that turns his knees to jelly.

Everything in Ricky is aching for roughness, but the older boy keeps touching him with unyielding softness.

Ricky loves it and hates it and he just wants to _cry._

So he does. Silent, frustrated tears - they build up quick and fall without warning, the pressure of them turning his face red.

He mewls, a devastated sound, head turned so he can bury it in the pillow. As much as the gentleness pains him, he thinks if EJ stops he truly might die.

But EJ, ever the attentive partner, hears the sound and abruptly stills. Ricky can feel his scrutinizing gaze burning into the side of his face, worry rolling off him in waves.

“Look at me, baby.” Calloused fingertips rub the wetness away, gently cupping his cheeks. “Why the tears? Does something hurt? You want me to stop?”

Ricky chokes back a cry, grabbing at EJ’s back so the older boy stays pressed against him. His blunt nails dig into the firm muscle underneath EJ’s shoulder blades. If his nails were any sharper, he’d break flesh.

“Okay, okay. I’m not going anywhere.”

EJ lowers himself until he’s laying on top of Ricky, chest to chest, forearms caging in the younger boy’s head, keeping his face buried in the tan skin of his collarbone. Ricky doesn’t realize what the older boy’s doing until he feels his heart begin to slow; EJ’s turned himself into a weighted blanket, smothering the anxiety before it can get any worse.

“Why aren’t you being mean to me?” Ricky mutters despairingly into EJ’s collarbone.

“You want me to be mean to you?” Ricky can feel EJ’s incredulous stare burning through the top of his head.

Ricky hits weakly at his shoulder. “You’re being so gentle and mushy tonight - it’s _weird_.”

EJ sits on his haunches, grabbing a handful of curls and tugging so Ricky can’t avoid his gaze as he’s wont to do during serious conversations. “You’re upset that I’m being nice to you during sex?”

Ricky groans. He wants to flop his head back but EJ’s grip is unyielding. “I like it sometimes, but I need mean, aggressive EJ tonight.”

EJ’s eyes darken. Some of it’s lust - the easiest way to get him aroused, Ricky’s found, is mentioning his douchey top behavior - but there’s gears turning in there too, assessing the prey pinned below him.

“Why do you need me to be mean to you?”

Ricky whines. “Because.”

“ _Because…?_ ” EJ goads, bringing up his other hand to pinch Ricky’s pec. 

_Because my mom wants me to move to Chicago and she always gets her way._

_Because you’re leaving and we still haven’t talked about it._

_Because the future is coming and I can’t stop it._

“I don’t wanna think anymore,” Ricky says - it sounds like a plea. “Just fuck me already!”

“You know, Bowen. If you told me what’s wrong, then maybe I’ll give you what you want.”

Ricky’s chin wobbles. He can feel the tears starting up again, and the last thing he wants is to burst into tears again. “I don’t want to move to Chicago,” he gasps, choked and watery.

EJ freezes. His shock lightens his grip on RIcky’s hair enough for him to tilt his head and awkwardly rub his eyes on the comforter.

“Why would you move to Chicago?” he asks slowly.

“Because my mom wants me to,” Ricky replies miserably.

“Do you want to?” EJ counters.

“I don’t want to leave my dad. He’ll be all alone.” Ricky knows he’s talking more about himself when he says that - his dad would miss him terribly, but Mike Bowen is a likable guy. He would be just fine. Ricky, however, is barely hanging on to the friends he has. He can’t imagine having to make new ones all the way across the country.

“Ricky. Ricky, look at me.” Stubbornly, the younger boy obeys. EJ’s face is calculating and assuring, an odd combination for a beautiful face. “Nobody gets everything they want, including your mom. You’re starting your senior year in the same school district you’ve been in your entire life. She has no plausible reason to move you to Chicago other than she misses you and wants to be greedy.”

“You don’t know my mom,” Ricky mutters, forlorn. “She always gets her way.”

“Maybe when she still lived with you,” EJ acquiesces. “But she can’t pull the strings from over a thousand miles away.”

Ricky thinks about it. His mother, despite the rambling phone calls and awkward visits with Todd she insists on making to check up on him, has significantly relished the grip she’s had on his life. The food he eats, the music he listens to, the way he styles his hair - she can’t do any of that through the phone.

Maybe EJ has a point. When Ricky says as much, EJ’s face morphs into that obnoxious conceited expression he always wears when he thinks he’s won something.

“Feel better?” EJ asks smugly.

Ricky weakly slaps his naked chest. “Don’t get cocky.”

EJ fakes a pout. “But, baby,” he drawls, grinding his hips down hard and slow. “You love it when I’m _cocky_.”

It’s all Ricky can do to keep himself from wailing. “How can you still be hard? I ruined the mood.”

EJ grabs his hand and leads it to his erection, straining against the cotton of his briefs. Ricky looks at him in bewilderment, feeling tears and snot dry on his face.

EJ smirks, moving the younger boy’s hand until his fingertips brush the top of his swollen balls. “Did I ever mention,” he whispers in a conspirational tone against the shell of Ricky’s ear, “that you look really fucking sexy when you cry?”

* * *

After EJ’s cleaned them both up with a damp washcloth, they lay side by side while some Pixar movie plays on EJ’s flatscreen. Because of course EJ needs a fucking flatscreen in his bedroom.

True to his word, EJ gave him what he wanted. Ricky entertains himselfs with pressing his fingers into the bruises on his hips, the nail indents on his throat. He likes the throbbing tingle the pressure shoots through his body, replaying the aggressive sex of just moments before.

EJ watches him idly out of the corner his eye, snorting. “Fucking masochist.”

“You like it too,” Ricky accuses, “or else you wouldn’t do it.”

“What can I say.” EJ’s fingers travel until they’re pinching Ricky’s nipple, twisting sharply. Ricky moans, bucking up. EJ swoops down and licks inside his mouth. When he pulls back, Ricky has a dazed look on his face. “I really like the way my marks look on you,” the older boy finishes.

Ricky harrumps, burrowing into EJ’s side, head laying on his chest. A nipple is in biting distance, and it’s the perfect opportunity to draw that high-pitched yelp out of EJ that he loves so much, but he’s too lazy and sated to actually move his mouth. 

Next time, Ricky promises himself blearily.

This brain helpfully tacks on, if there’s a next time.

Ricky feels the darkness begin to creep again; he pushes it away by wrapping his arms needily around EJ’s torso.

“Los Angeles is really far away,” Ricky mumbles.

Thin fingers rub soothingly at his scalp. “Chicago’s even farther.” Another hand snags Ricky’s fingers and a hot warm presses against each knuckle, grounding him. Ricky sighs and tries to focus on the colorful characters running around the screen.

There would be time to talk about the future and everything in it. Chicago, California, college. Them and sex and senior year and the inevitable end to summer.

But for the moment, sticky and sated and weighed down by the muscular body above him, Ricky’s head is totally empty.

Contentment is all there is.

**Author's Note:**

> come say hey on my [tumblr](http://spideypetes.tumblr.com).


End file.
